Friday, July 7, 2017

Immigrant Smugglers Blame Trump For Business Drying Up

I’ve posted several times on what the Trump administration is doing to cut down on illegals coming to the United States. While Trump has revoked the “catch and release” policy of the Obama administration and has started actively arresting and deporting illegals who had been considered safe under Obama, the biggest accomplishment is cutting down the supply side of the demand. Rather that trying to shovel a tide of illegals out of the nation, the administration has been trying to actively deter potential illegals from making the journey in the first place. They have been running public service campaigns in Central America highlighting the difficulty of the trip and the lack of welcome awaiting. Just Friday, the administration confirmed that it will now prosecute parents who pay “coyotes” to smuggle their minor children into the United States.

While some of Mr. Trump’s most ambitious plans to tighten the border are still a long way off, particularly his campaign pledge to build a massive wall, his hard-line approach to immigration already seems to have led to sharp declines in the flow of migrants from Central America bound for the United States.

From February through May, the number of undocumented immigrants stopped or caught along the southwest border of the United States fell 60 percent from the same period last year, according to United States Customs and Border Protection — evidence that far fewer migrants are heading north, officials on both sides of the border say. --->